


sic semper tyrannis

by voodoochild



Category: L.A. Confidential (1997), L.A. Quartet - James Ellroy
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed's happiness is not your typical happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sic semper tyrannis

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **fallen_woman** for her prompt of "Ed/happiness". Title from the well-known Latin saying - "thus always to tyrants". Ed and Lynn also reference quotes from Aeschylus's Oresteia.

_What does it feel like to have everything?_ , the press asks him.

It’s not what he’d thought, that’s for sure. He couldn’t have imagined the warmth in the pit of his stomach when he was sworn in Chief of Detectives or Governor. Nor could he have expected the cold satisfaction of watching Dudley Smith fade away, absolute justice at last. The glow of a sun-soaked room, painted in blues and golds, in Bisbee, Arizona, three weeks every May - that has never even been a dream.

But they still ask him - _are you happy?_ \- and how can he fit any of that in a printable sound bite?

“Call no man happy until he is dead,” he quotes instead.

The papers love his scholarly leanings. Bud simply sends him a battered copy of the Oresteia with a post-script in Lynn’s flowing hand:

_Death is softer by far, than tyranny. Be well, our tyrant._


End file.
